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Welcome Gaetano, I don't think you will have any trouble with tailgaters. What I don't like even more than tailgaters are those who shine their lights right into your vehicle. Sometimes trucks will be at such a height that their headlights seem to hit right in my rear view mirror, and when it is nighttime, on these rural roads the same vehicle can follow you for miles...you either have to turn off somewhere or hope they do///moving the mirror so it is not as blinding is also a choice of course!

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I fixed the clock of a tailgater once, rough on her it was, but, pissed off I was, and here's what happened. I was driving off to work, following the twisty-turny 2-lane rural road from our house outside Phoenix. It undulated because a century or two earlier the Anasazi Indians had dug an irrigation channel needing the required slope to bring water to their crops. That slope dictated the twists and turns in the ditch, and years later the urban planners had followed it, as the ditch was still in use, albeit irrigating acre-sized residential lots.

A car much bigger than my Ford Fiesta persisted in following real closely as I negotiated the turns at perhaps 5 over the limit; I saw in my rear-view, an exasperated female face typical of the venue, could have easily passed me, then gone like hell, no other cars seen for a mile at least, but, no, just keep getting hotter, lady. Luck was with me. The final curve before becoming 35th. Ave., a vital surface street, but 10 miles further north, encompassed a hill over which Carver Road undulated. Just as I crested the top, there ahead, right in the middle of our lane, there lay a large wood pallet! I thought, "lady you have bought it". At the last moment, the frustrated woman following closer than ever (it was now downhill), I swerved and zigged around the pallet, knowing she couldn't possibly see it in time, maybe not at all. Watching the result closely, mirror-reversed image, but great just the same, she hit the pallet full-on; I saw innumerable pieces of oak splinters in the air, and thought, she will be late to where she's going, almost certain it had to have taken out her radiator. I did see her pull over, by then a quarter mile ahead. I felt remorse, believe it or not. I felt perhaps she learned a valuable lesson, or, that MAYBE the experience had made her worse than before.

I wonder how she explained the event to her old man? Was I remiss in teaching her this lesson? WHAT IF: the pallet had been a kid running in the road, an animal, a stalled vehicle? The what ifs have convinced me I am exonerated. Bothered me for years, though. Frank

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When I was a paramedic, we were returning back to the station after transporting a patient to a Brownsville, Texas hospital. On a one-lane farm-to-market road, I was driving the speed limit, or maybe a few miles over, when a car came up behind me, wanting to pass. There was oncoming traffic so he couldn't pass, and the shoulder wasn't wide enough to accommodate an ambulance. I sped up a little but wasn't about to drive way over the speed limit just because this guy was in a hurry.

He started flashing his headlights at me, then put his brights on and left them on, as he tailgated our ambulance. He swerved into the oncoming lane several times but couldn't pass due to oncoming traffic. As I was coming into Los Fresnos, where I worked, I got on the radio and told one of our police officers that someone had been tailgating me, flashing his lights and that he had had his brights on for the past few miles. At the Los Fresnos city limits, the road widened into two lanes.

As soon as he had the opportunity, the tailgater stepped on the gas and laid on his horn as he passed me, in order to let me know how angry he was. At that moment, the Los Fresnos PD pulled him over. Ten minutes later, the officer was on the radio to dispatch to report that he was back in service.

"I'm 10-8, two citations. Also, please note that the subject is a police officer from South Padre Island and I don't think he likes me very much."

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The vehicle was an old creamed colored Lincoln which tailgated me from the time I left the side street of a thrift store to go home on a one way street. Once we reached a two lane it passed at a higher speed and then got caught by the red light. After the light turned green it sped off and then parked in a fire lane that was in front of a restaurant. I thought 'Really?' As I was approaching the driver's door flew open. Did I stop? Too late. The side of the door hit the passenger side of my Jeep and I heard a loud screeching sound. I pulled over and got out to inspect the damage and saw that the other driver's door was up against the front fender. The driver immediately got out and started cursing me. I don't think that he realized that it wasn't legal to park in a fire lane before he called the police, as did I. The police arrived and the first thing he pointed out to the driver was being parked in a fire lane. The officer came over and asked if there was any damage to my vehicle and I said nothing real serious and he said that he wasn't going to site me because it wouldn't have happened otherwise.

I believe that driver intentionally opened the car door but whatever he thought was going to happen in his favor backfired.

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